Monday, March 15, 2010

The couch makers win...

Life is what happens when you're making other plans - personally I blame John Lennon. So my uber-fit SO has gone and damaged himself playing soccer (ruptured ACL most likely) leaving me as sole taxi-driver for the foreseeable future. I do not like driving (just a touch phobic really) and avoid it wherever possible. And his excuse is better than any excuse I can come up with to get out of all the chores that need doing. Yesterday we went to hire some crutches, today we are off to the sports medicine specialists over in the hinterlands, and I'm not sure what is on the agenda for tomorrow. Poor thing - it is a cruel twist of fate that sporty people, who by their very nature find it difficult to put their feet up and do nothing, are often forced through injury to put their feet up and do nothing. Couch potatoes on the other hand, who are not really using their limbs, don't get injured at all. I guess the couch manufacturers are happy either way.

I was surprised (and gratified) to hear that my picture book The Were-Nana had recently topped the library list at Owairaka Primary, a school I visited at with Kyle Mewburn last year. And I have been invited to Greenhithe School for an author visit next month as my book is popular there also. I hadn't expected this second wave of interest and activity so long after publication but I am delighted it is happening and very excited and happy to go and meet the children who have been reading it.

The Bologna Childrens Book Fair is on soon and as a member of the NZ chapter of SCBWI my books will get a bit of an airing over there. Thanks to Frances Plumpton, regional SCBWI organiser and one of the few children's author agents in NZ who is taking over a heavy suitcase so she can tout local members books. I made up a little brochure about myself to accompany my books and I'm hoping that at least one gets taken away. Someone once said that taking an author to a book fair is like taking a cow to an abattoir but I have heard rave reports from attending authors and if I could ever get myself there I would love to go, just to see the books, the hopeful artists gallery, feel the atmosphere and try and understand the process. I guess if you are a hot property it is easy to feel the love. If no one knows who you are I guess it might be depressing and disappointing, so the best strategy might be anonymity. I'd be happy to be an anonymous author in a small but perfectly formed italian town on a book jag.

SO is 'significant other' - my fab (if slightly broken) husband. Sounds like he'll be having surgery in 6 to 8 weeks so he can have a matching pair of reconstructed knees!

Whenever I do a school visit I feel jealous because I never got to meet an author when I was a child - I would have loved it and I sometimes wonder if it would have put me on the path to being a serious writer sooner.

My latest book

Fuzzy Doodle

Contact Me

I would love to hear from you. Want to ask me a question? Want me to visit your school, library, group and talk about writing? Want to find out where you can buy my books? Then send me a message at melinda@tale-spin.com